Ron Johnson seeks power to subpoena dozens of Obama officials tied to Trump-Russia inquiry and 'unmasking'

A top Senate Republican intends to pursue subpoenas for records and testimony from dozens of officials involved in the Russia investigation with a special focus on the time frame just after President Trump’s win in the 2016 election.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has scheduled a business meeting for Thursday morning during which he will urge his panel to empower him to demand documents and compel interviews as he scrutinizes the actions taken by the Obama administration during its investigation into Russian election interference.

“We have a great tradition in this country of peaceful and cooperative transitions of power, and the American people deserve to know if any wrongdoing occurred to corrupt the process and sabotage the new administration,” Johnson said.

The Wisconsin Republican emphasized that “we are going to vote on this authorization with the hope that subpoenas won’t be necessary” and noted that “in some cases, we are already working with the agencies and individuals identified to obtain the information we need to do our work, and inclusion on the list should in no way be interpreted to suggest they have been noncompliant.”

“I am asking for this authority to ensure the committee has the ability to quickly and efficiently seek compulsory process should it become necessary," he added.

The business agenda for the June 4 meeting at 10 a.m. in the Russell Senate Office Building says senators will discuss a “motion to authorize the Chairman to issue subpoenas for records and testimony to U.S. Government agencies and to individuals relating to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation, the DOJ Inspector General’s review of that investigation, and the ‘unmasking’ of U.S. persons affiliated with the Trump campaign, transition teams, and Trump Administration.”

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s December report criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page in 2016 and 2017 and for the bureau's reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s deeply flawed dossier. Steele put his research together at the behest of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, funded by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. Recently declassified footnotes show the FBI was aware that Steele’s dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation and used it anyway.

Johnson’s office said “an outgoing presidential administration wields a great deal of power during the transition process, which begins before an election and has effects beyond inauguration day” and “if existing laws were abused or the President-elect’s trust in the process were exploited, the committee should determine how to amend the laws to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” The inquiry will look into "unmasking," the use of defensive briefings, leaks of classified information to the media, interactions between State Department political officials and Steele, and the FBI's successful efforts to gain access to the Trump transition team’s records.

Earlier this month, former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell released a declassified National Security Agency document containing a list of dozens of Obama administration officials, including Joe Biden, who were authorized recipients of information in response to "unmasking" requests that revealed retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn's identity in surveillance intercepts. The former Trump national security adviser's name was reportedly not masked in the FBI reports on his conversations with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period.

DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec announced on Wednesday that Attorney General William Barr selected John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, to carry out a deep dive into the unmaskings to assist the broader review of the Trump-Russia investigators being conducted by U.S. Attorney John Durham.

Johnson’s proposed subpoena authorities would include: asking the FBI for all of its records related to Crossfire Hurricane and any documents tied to requests to the General Services Administration for presidential transition records from November 2016 through December 2017, pushing the DOJ inspector general’s office to produce all its records tied to its FISA investigation, telling the State Department to hand over any employee communications related to Steele, and asking the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to provide any “unmasking” requests related to the Trump orbit from June 2015 through January 2017.

Johnson said the subpoenas could demand relevant documents, communications, and testimony from former FBI general counsel James Baker, former CIA Director John Brennan, longtime Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, fired FBI Director James Comey, GSA lawyer Seth Greenfeld, former State Department official Kathleen Kavalec, former FBI lawyer Sally Moyer, former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, former GSA inspector general Carol Ochoa, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, former FBI special agent Joseph Pientka, former Obama U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, former FBI counterintelligence official Bill Priestap, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice, Clinton associate Cody Shearer, fired FBI special agent Peter Strzok, and former special envoy Jonathan Winer.

Johnson said he also might subpoena a number of lesser-known Obama officials who appeared on the NSA’s Flynn unmasking list, including Obama’s former director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, Patrick Conlon; Obama’s former deputy chief of mission to Italy and current Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan; Obama’s Deputy Director of National Intelligence Michael Dempsey; Obama’s former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew; former Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough; former Treasury official Arthur “Danny” McGlynn, who recently left the Trump administration; Treasury official Michael Neufeld; former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Stephanie O’Sullivan; Obama Ambassador to Italy John Phillips; former Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Raskin; former Treasury Undersecretary Nathan Sheets; former Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall; and former acting Treasury Undersecretary Adam Szubin.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham is also seeking broad authority to subpoena dozens of key officials in the Trump-Russia investigation.